“President Obama and the White House staff are not working with Republicans on immigration reform,” Rubio spokesman Alex Conant said in an email to reporters. “Senator Rubio’s office has never discussed immigration policy with anyone in the White House.”

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney disputed that. “We have been in contact with everybody involved in this effort on Capitol Hill,” he said.

***

A lot of people are noticing that Marco Rubio’s immigration reform plan has a lot in common with President Obama’s immigration reform plan, which Rubio denounced as “half-baked.” This is not good for Rubio, who is almost certainly running for president in 2016 (if you need further evidence, check out the tour of the Middle East he’s on right now) and would need to keep conservative voters happy to make it through the primary. So Rubio’s office is insisting the two plans are not alike at all — and their offices haven’t even spoken.

***

President Obama did some political outreach Tuesday, phoning key Republican senators on immigration.

“The President reiterated that he remains supportive of the effort underway in Congress, and that he hopes that they can produce a bill as soon as possible that reflects shared core principles on reform,” said a White House statement…

Rubio spokesman Alex Conant said the senator “appreciated receiving President Obama’s phone call to discuss immigration reform late tonight in Jerusalem. The Senator told the President that he feels good about the ongoing negotiations in the Senate, and is hopeful the final product is something that can pass the Senate with strong bipartisan support.”

***

A draft of the White House immigration bill was leaked over the weekend, detailing a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants that would take about 13 years after the passage of the bill to complete, policy experts say…

That conflict over border security has been a sore spot for Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who blasted the White House draft bill over the weekend as “half baked.” But policy experts and advocates believe that Obama and the Senate gang are far closer than the rhetoric suggests. “I don’t think fundamentally there is that much difference among these proposals,” says Chishti.

***

Both Rubio and Obama, for instance, support special pathways to residency for those students and soldiers who were brought illegally to this country as children. In the White House draft legislation, the proposal closely resembles what’s known as the DREAM Act…

Also the [White House] draft bills obtained by The Herald and USA Today show that, contrary to Rubio’s concern, the plan wouldn’t give illegal immigrants a chance to obtain citizenship before those who lawfully entered the country…

Aside from the emphasis on border security, there appears to be relatively little in the White House draft proposals that conflicts with what Rubio wants…

This touring indignation act isn’t just for Rubio’s own benefit. The Republicans he needs to win over to pass a bill will be a lot more comfortable if they think they’re somehow thumbing their nose at Obama by voting for it. We’ve seen this dynamic on other issues in recent weeks, most notably the debt ceiling, where conservative Republicans delivered a lot of macho partisan talk about a bill that was objectively a huge cave to the White House. If a compromise bill ends up passing, expect to see a lot of statements from Republicans supporters about how they stopped some non-existent White House “amnesty” bill.

***

“An Obama plan, led and driven by Obama in this atmosphere, with the level of hostility toward the president and the way he goads the hostility, I think it is very hard to imagine that bill, that his bill is going to pass the House,” Gingrich said. But he added that a bill originating in the Senate “could actually get to the president’s desk.”

I believe Gingrich is right. Republican members of Congress have shown a willingness, even an eagerness, to vote against measures that they themselves have sponsored in the past — if Obama is now proposing them.

So if the president really wants immigration reform to pass, one of the most helpful things he could do is put out his own plan as a decoy, to draw Republican fire, while the Senate works toward bipartisan consensus. Which looks suspiciously like what just happened.

***

The “backup plan” stuff is nonsense — the point of leaking the [White House] bill is to enable Rubio to say that his amnesty plan is waaay different from the dastardly Obama plan, even though they’re identical in the only respect that matters: amnesty immediately for all illegal aliens, with work cards, Social Security numbers, driver’s licenses, the right to travel abroad and return, etc. The president has repeatedly said he wants to stand back and let Congress come up with a bill because if he were to send one to Congress it would be toxic for Republicans — i.e., those Republicans who desperately want to sell out their constituents by backing amnesty but are afraid of the voter backlash. The Rubio and Ryan criticisms of the proposed bill sound almost as though they were scripted by Schumer and White House to make the Senate Gang of Eight scheme seem more palatable to such Republicans…

This whole gambit is so transparent even Talking Points Memo is commenting on it. Immigration hawks would do well not to get sucked into this phony controversy. Obama’s bill is Rubio’s bill.

***

The only real difference between Obama and Rubio appears to be whether or not a border security “trigger” should be met before those here illegally now could become citizens. But even this is not that big a deal. White House spokesman Josh Earnest has already admitted that while Obama does not prefer a trigger, he will sign a bill that contains one.

And Obama’s willingness to include a trigger is not surprising, considering how utterly worthless any such measure would be. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., conceded as much last week when he told Univision that the satisfaction of any trigger requirement would ultimately be up to whoever was Department of Homeland Security Secretary at the time. And how secure does Secretary Janet Napolitano think our border is now? “Our borders have, in fact, never been stronger,” she testified to Congress last week.

I’m not usually a conspiracy theorist, but it’s hard not to see at least a shadow of a good-cop/bad-cop routine in the reaction of the Gang of Eight to President Obama’s leaked blueprint for “comprehensive immigration reform.” Obama’s plan differs in largely trivial ways from the gang of Eight’s proposal — it would allow illegal immigrants to apply for permanent-residence status after eight years on probationary status, whereas the Gang of Eight’s proposal makes the transition from probationary status to permanent-residence status conditional on a yet-to-be-named commission certifying that the border is secure. That distinction is all but irrelevant in the practical realm. Both proposals send the message to intending illegal aliens that the U.S. is still doling out amnesties — and the most important amnesty is the immediate probationary status in both plans that immunizes illegal aliens already here from enforcement (and that grants them legal presence inside the country ahead of intending legal immigrants still waiting outside the country for permission to enter). The chance that under either the Gang of Eight or Obama’s plan an illegal alien on probationary status will lose that status, short of committing a heinous crime, is zero. However much it might hurt Americans’ feelings, American citizenship is not a high priority for Hispanic immigrants, legal and illegal, who have historically had a very low rate of naturalization. Only Proposition 187 in California increased Hispanics’ naturalization rate. And the difference between probationary status and permanent residency under the Gang of Eight’s proposal does not appear to be particularly significant, either…

The other important message that both plans send out is to illegal-alien advocates in the U.S.: protest works. Since the 2006 spring amnesty protests, the delegitimizing of enforcement has only gathered steam. Do not expect enforcement to become relegitimized after the next amnesty; rather, it will become even more stigmatized as unfair to its targets and a separator of families.

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AP — I give you a lot of respect when you put your finger on things like this.

It’s so obvious..that it’s almost sickening, but yet, some here just keep bashing Obama as if he’s the ONLY devil. That hate has made them blind to the devil IN THEIR OWN HOUSE.

After 4 yrs, it would be so stupid for Obama to not figure out how to run circles around you with such an obvious weakness. And Rubio’s head is way too big with the idea of being “the first latino president” to have a soul.

Hence this #BCGC game here.
You are right on dude. I’m pretty sure some here will say that you are full of crap though.

A lot of people are noticing that Marco Rubio’s immigration reform plan has a lot in common with President Obama’s immigration reform plan, which Rubio denounced as “half-baked.”
.
excerpt: Allahpundit

So what White House talking points memo that their media is talking and writing about? Obama immigration plan is the same as the Rubio immigration plan… At what point you folks are going to learn not to fall for the liberal propaganda and lies?… And some of you think that you are smart and know liberals? Apparently you are not smart and you do not know liberals if you keep believing everything they tell you…

President Obama did some political outreach Tuesday, phoning key Republican senators on immigration.

Were I one of those senators, I would have told whoever on my staff took the call to tell the rat-eared fraud that I’d get back to him just as quickly as he got back to Ambassador Chris Stevens on September 11th of last year.

So what White House talking points memo that their media is talking and writing about? Obama immigration plan is the same as the Rubio immigration plan… At what point you folks are going to learn not to fall for the liberal propaganda and lies?… And some of you think that you are smart and know liberals? Apparently you are not smart and you do not know liberals if you keep believing everything they tell you…

Not necessarily. Thanks to Obama and Eric Holder trying to ban guns through Operation Fast and Furious, guns have no borders. The United States Government under orders of the Attorney General managed to kill hundreds of Mexicans in Mexico along with a border agent. All to pander to the Brady Group.

The whole lot of them were high-fiving each other when 20 five-yeare-olds were killed at Sandy Hook. It gave them a second chance.

“First of all, to me that would be an act of tyranny. So the people in Milwaukee County do not have to worry about me enforcing some sort of order that goes out and collects everybody’s handgun, or rifles, or any kind of firearm and makes them turn them in. The reason is I don’t want to get shot, because I believe that if somebody tried to enforce something of that magnitude, you would see the second coming of an American Revolution, the likes of which would make the first revolution pale by comparison.”

– Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, who recently urged the citizens he serves to consider learning firearm safety because of “a duty to protect yourself and your family.”

Oh, and for the race-baiters that claim that gun ownership is some sort of “white man’s war against minorities,” Sheriff David Clarke is an African-American and a Democrat.

i do believe that the WH immigration reform ideas are close to Rubio’s. That said, the border security difference is a big one. Don’t believe the crap Zero says about not being for it, but he would sign a bill with a trigger in it. He lies. He wants to discredit the Senate plan with the conservative base. He doesn’t want this to pass either!! He wants to use it in 2014. If he wins the House, he can pass what he wants. If not, continue to blame the GOP, which he is quite good at doing.

@INC I admire you, especially on matters of faith. On this matter, I take the long view. Yes, Rubio is ambitious. I agree. CIR will or will not be done by this summer. IMO, it’ll happen. By next year, it’ll be old news and forgotten. It won’t be a factor at all in the next Preezy elections. Its hot and heavy right now. Thats it. Anyways, if Rubio enters the primaries, he’ll lose. He may have a better chance in ’20 or ’24 (depending on the circumstances). Thats my take.

Just you wait and see. None of these flashes in the pan will end up as our nominee. I mean the 3 Rs. Nice showboating though. Lol

tommy71 on February 19, 2013 at 11:00 PM

If the GOP is going to survive, none of them will be. If any of them are, it just confirms that the GOP is dead meat. Why isn’t Scott Walker ever talked up as a presidential candidate? College background? Pfffft. The guy is a reformer with a spine.

Rubio is smoking funny weed if he thinks that is NOT Amnesty. Once given most of the benefits of citizenship that will never be taken away. Eventually they will be given citizenship just like Reagan’s plan did with no increase in border security.

Every honest person knows this is nothing but a sham.

Rubio really hurts himself when he says he does not know of illegals coming here for the benefits. I see them at WalMart every time I shop is he blind? Or is he just plain lying?

Thank you for the compliment! On immigration it was really acrimonious last time around in 2007 when it finally had a stake driven through its heart. I do think that what Rubio does now on this will color (no racism intended!) for years how he is seen by conservatives.

This is all Rubio’s baby. He badly wants illegal immigration reform. If he had never mentioned illegal(oops – he doesn’t) immigration then he would have remained a conservative hero, a bright young star and all that. Either he’s made a calculation that he can’t win in 2016 without liberals or he believes ,in his heart,illegal immigration reform is the #1 issue of the day.

And I think anyone who wants to be President should work to be a governor first because IMHO its the best way to see who someone is.

My sentiments exactly!! Seems to me he doesn’t have the establishment approved education. If so, that is gonna hurt. Not for me, He would be my No. 1 pick right now. He is a guy who has actually accomplished something.

Of course it is amnesty. Nobody really denies that even though they use stupid focus-group tested terms like” earned path to citizenship”.

It is the details that matter. And I would add this to the list of requirements for amnesty. Prove that you add value to our society by your work. Prove that you did not cross over the border and were applying and getting benefits like Section 8 housing vouchers or money from other social programs at any time after you became an illegal alien. Prove you have a skill we need and want in America.

The left almost always talks about America as a nation of immigrants and that is true on the superficial level that convinces Honey Boo Boo. The reality is that that Ellis Island was not a welcoming center it was in immigration center. People were turned away if they were not going to be able to contribute to this society and wanted to be Americans. I personally know somebody who got to Ellis Island and was almost sent back because he and his brother were suspected of being contagious.

Health issues aside, the rule forever was that immigrants had to prove they could pull their own weight. Obama wants to make it very easy for illegals to get full benefit of our society without contributing anything other than (maybe) candidates for the DREAM executive order.

Let’s keep in mind that this week saw an ILLEGAL ALIEN attacking Congress for calling him a criminal. He demanded terms like undocumented even though he could not have gotten into that hearing without at least a photo ID. Illegal aliens are not undocumented and they are not migrants. They are criminals. How society deals with that fact is a different matter but let us not construe who and what they are.

Like I said, they (media, dems) would use try to paint
walker like they did Pal…Nope, not sounding the gill horn. you get my drift. McDonnell will be free of his successful Governorship of the Commonwealth of Virginia this year. Keep an eye on him.